Posing with the flag: Trait-specific effects of symbols on person perception

Abstract

People often become associated, either intentionally or coincidentally, with emotionally laden symbols. This work examines whether such associations lead to the ascription of specific symbol-implied traits. Experiment 1 demonstrates that symbols that logically have implications regarding a target individual influence spontaneous trait impressions, and do so even more strongly when the symbol–target pairing is memorable. Moreover, consistent with work on cue diagnosticity in trait attribution, these effects were more pronounced for negative than positive symbols related to sociability and for positive than negative symbols related to ability. Experiment 2 demonstrates that symbols that are only coincidentally associated with an individual also influence spontaneous impressions, but that this effect is not moderated by either symbol–target memorability or by symbol valence. Both experiments indicate that symbol effects are specific to the traits implied to symbols, and not simply a reflection of global evaluative influences such as conditioning. The findings are explained in terms of attributional (Experiment 1) and associative (Experiment 2) processes.